How Trump could deliver a blow to his enemies by releasing secret files on JFK assassination

The CIA has urged the ­President to ban the unveiling of the documents over fears the information would damage national security - but Trump tweeted his support for their release

By Mike Ridley

24th October 2017, 2:29 am

Updated: 24th October 2017, 8:31 am

DONALD TRUMP is a man with a notoriously short attention span, but on this phone call he was hanging on to every word.

And as he sat in the White House listening to his friend and political adviser Roger Stone, the President’s jaw dropped.

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John F Kennedy was killed in Dallas in 1963

It was dawning on Trump that by releasing long-secret official ­documents about an assassination that took place more than half a century ago, he could seriously wound his enemies.

Under rules set up 25 years ago, the US National Archives have until Thursday to release the remaining files related to the 1963 killing of John F Kennedy — unless the President forbids it.

Government agencies including the CIA have been urging the ­President to ban the release of some of the files.

They fear the material — millions of pages contained in 3,000 never-before-seen documents as well as 30,000 that have previously only been partially released — could damage national security interests.

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Donald Trump tweeted his support for the release of the JFK files

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Kennedy moments before his assassination

But here was trusted ­confidant Stone on the line, telling him that these files could contain information that could be toxic to three of the things Trump hates the most.

They are the CIA, his former rival for Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, and the nation of Mexico.

The JFK assassination could be the magic bullet to hit them all.

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Lee Harvey Oswald after his arrest

And so on Saturday, after ­listening to Stone, Trump tweeted his apparent approval for releasing the files in full.

He wrote: “Subject to the receipt of further information, I will be allowing, as President, the long blocked and classified JFK FILES to be opened.”

Stone has spent years studying the shooting, which took place as ­President Kennedy rode through Dallas in a motorcade in November 1963.

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Lyndon B Johnson being sworn in as president

He believes the official killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was just a stooge — and instead the assassination was masterminded by then-Vice President Lyndon B Johnson and the CIA, which feared JFK was too soft on communist Cuba.

And he hopes the papers will back him up — a potentially ­tempting proposition for Trump, who has long made his distrust of the agency well known.

As Stone told a conspiracy-theory radio show this week: “I believe they show that Oswald was trained, nurtured and put in place by the Central Intelligence Agency.

“It sheds very bad light on the deep state.”

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Trump said this picture shows Oswald photographed near Rafael Cruz, although the senator's father denounced the claim

Meanwhile, many historians also believe the unseen documents could show that Oswald took a six-day trip to Mexico — a nation which Trump blames for many of the US’s problems — to organise an escape after the shooting.

Oswald visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City to apply for visas that would let him return to the Soviet Union, where he had lived from 1959 to 1962.

The then US ambassador to Mexico, Thomas Mann, believed the plot to kill Kennedy had been hatched on Mexican soil, and only hours after the shooting told colleagues he was certain Oswald had not acted alone.

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Trump with Ted Cruz: the two were rivals for Republican presidential candidate

It was later revealed that the CIA had Oswald under surveillance in Mexico City. Again, historians hope more evidence of why the agency did not swoop before the assassination may now come to light.

Trump, according to Stone — who has a tattoo on his back of ­disgraced former President Richard Nixon — was “all ears” at this huge pile of potential dirty laundry being released.

Finally, Trump also ­listened agog as Stone, 65, told how the papers could include evidence that former rival Ted Cruz’s dad met with Oswald before the shooting.

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Rafael Cruz denounced the claims made by Trump

This claim, denounced as “garbage” by Cruz and dad Rafael, was made by Trump during the race for the White House, based on an old and indistinct photograph.

Trump told a US TV show: “I mean, what was he doing?

"What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”

Lee Harvey Oswald, 24, was ­himself gunned down two days after the assassination, shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby while being escorted through the basement of the Dallas police station.

The untimely — and some believe, all-too-convenient — murder means many questions about the assassination went unanswered, spawning thousands of conspiracy theories.

Every snippet of information that is already in the public domain has been pored over in minute detail — most notably the famous home-movie footage of the assassination taken by onlooker Abraham Zapruder in the Dallas crowd.

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Oswald was killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby

And indeed, whatever information is contained in those millions of pages, they are guaranteed to spawn even more intricate theories.

But that may take some time.

Back in July, when a relatively tiny 400 previously unseen JFK files were released by the National Archives, so many people tried to download them that the system crashed and it took days to get at them.

Then it turned out they were so full of CIA and FBI code names and jargon that it will take “months or years” to decipher them.

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JFK's wife Jackie with their two children Caroline and John Junior

This time, there are thousands of thousands of files. Back in 1992 Congress agreed to release them all in 25 years’ time because of ­pressure following renewed interest in the case due to Oliver Stone’s hit movie JFK.

Initially, archive bosses planned to release the new documents in batches, to avoid straining the ­system — but they now say they will release everything at once, all on the same day.

Researchers Philip Shenon and Larry J Sabato wrote on website Politico they expect a “logistical nightmare” that will end in “massive confusion, if not chaos”.

And they concluded: “Pandemonium is all but guaranteed.”

Theories behind the killing

Was Kennedy actually killed by the CIA?

ACCORDING to this theory, the CIA decided to do away with the President because the agency was furious about his “soft” stance on Cuba and communism.

He had allegedly angered the agency by refusing to offer air support for a disastrous CIA-sponsored bid to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1961.

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JFK and his wife Jackie pictured arriving in Texas the day before he was assassinated

And was Mafia involved too?

The idea is that the CIA teamed up with the Mafia for the killing, because both organisations wanted to overthrow Castro.

The Mafia was worried that Castro would shut down its Cuban casinos.

Government documents did later show the CIA worked with the Mafia to try to take down Castro, giving some credibility to the conspiracy.

Or was it JFK's successor?

ONE extreme theory speculates that JFK’s Vice President, Lyndon B Johnson, feared getting dropped from the Democratic ticket in the upcoming 1964 election so intensely that he plotted to have Kennedy assassinated himself or in cahoots with the CIA.

According to a 1968 memoir by Kennedy’s personal secretary, JFK did indeed tell Johnson that he would be dropped – just three days before Kennedy was killed.

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Some conspiracy theorists believe that a second gunman must have been involved in the shooting which killed JFK

President Trump’s adviser Roger Stone is a firm believer in this theory.

He wrote a book claiming that fingerprints found on a cardboard box in the building where the shots were fired belonged to the Vice President’s former press secretary.

This man, Malcolm Wallace, was a convicted murderer, having shot a love rival on a golf course in 1951.

What about the KGB?

Some theorists believe a band of Soviet officers carried out the Kennedy assassination, directed by Premier Nikita Krushchev, as part of the Cold War.

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The JFK files contain 3,000 never-before-seen documents

Was there really only one gunman?

There has always been speculation that there simply was not enough time for a lone Oswald to reload and fire his rifle three times.

But a first shot wounded Kennedy, a second shot wounded Governor of Texas John Connally, who was also in the car, and a third and final shot killed Kennedy.

Some ballistic experts have claimed there must have been a second shooter, firing from a different angle.

Those who believe Oswald was working alone have come up with the so-called “single” or “magic” bullet theory, in which one round bounced in and out between Connally and Kennedy like a pinball.